Employment:

2006 Female Labor Force Participation Rate:

54%

Wage Equality for Similar Work (Ratio of women’s wage to men’s wage)

0.65

Enterprise-Level Policies to Combat and Prevent Sexual Harassment

3.64

Public education is provided free in Mauritania, and is compulsory between the ages of six to 14. In the third and fourth years of secondary school, students take courses in physics and computer science. Students obtaining a satisfactory report card can continue on to the lycee, where basic sciences and mathematics are offered as two of the four tracks of intensive study. The Secretariat for the Condition of Girls and Women and the Secretariat for Literacy have launched thirteen awareness-raising campaigns. These campaigns encourage communities to build schools closer to homes and to integrate women into the teaching faculty. Improvements in women’s education are apparent, with the literacy rate for women at 43% in 2006. The primary school enrollment rate for girls in 2006 was 74%. However, numbers drastically drop in secondary school, enrollment recorded at 13% and even worse in tertiary school, enrollment at a mere 2%. It is evident that gender disparities are still present and more efforts are needed to bring more women into higher education.

Women also have legal rights to own property and to receive equal pay for equal work. While women could benefit from broader enforcement of this law, the two largest employers — the civil service and the state mining company — do respect this stipulation.